


You always were the one to wear the pants

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Bad Parenting, Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield Have a Good Relationship, Femininity, Forced Feminization, Gen, Self Confidence Issues, Shopping Malls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21802423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Susan wants her daughter to be more feminine and to change the way she looks under the superstition that she'll never fall in love looking like a man, but Billy thinks that's a load of bullshit, and knows exactly what to do to fix it.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Comments: 10
Kudos: 121





	You always were the one to wear the pants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pandaruler1897](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandaruler1897/gifts).



> This is for @Pandaruler1897, who requested Susan wanting Max to dress more like a woman and Billy making her feel better, and this is the best I could do. This is actually the second time I've written this fic because the first one was before I'd gotten confirmation on the request SO this is Take 2. I'm actually very happy with the way this turned out, so I hope you all feel the same xx

Her mother had been extremely surprised that Max had managed to convince Billy without any effort to take them both to the freshly rebuilt Starcourt Mall early that morning, especially considering to his aversion to it, but if Max had known what she knew now, she never would have agreed to go with her.

They were walking through the brightly lit hallways of the mall, bustling with excited people happy to return to their shopping and hang out with their friends, but Max didn’t get a chance to feel the same way. Her mother had come to the mall for a very specific task, one that she would not be deterred from, and that was turning Max into her perfect little princess covered head to toe in lace and frills and sparkles.

“But, mum,” Max had argued while her mum perused the items on a rack in the first store they entered. “I don’t want to wear any of this.”

“None of your complaining today please, Maxine,” her mother said absently. “You’ve been spending too much time with those boys playing make-believe. You’ve lost your femininity. You need to get your personality back and stop pretending to be something you’re not, and I’ve found that the best way to regain your identity is to do a little shopping.”

Max hadn’t been able to change her mind in that store, and not in any store after. Her mother had a bag hanging over her arm, and Max despised the bright yellow skirt she knew was contained within the plastic.

Susan pulled her daughter into a store that Max knew from past experience was a new addition to the recent remodelling of the mall, with a neon sign that hurt to look at and thin manikins in the window backlit by spotlights and modelling the stores best clothing. It looked flattering on the manikins, and Max knew without even trying that the clothes wouldn’t look as good on her larger frame.

She was dragged through isle after isle and Max watched as her mother’s eyes lit up at every new garment she took from the display, matching it with the figurine wearing the same combination, and Max dreaded putting it on because she knew that her mother would be disappointed.

Finally, Max was thrust into a dressing room by her mother’s perfectly manicured nails with an armful of frilly dresses with a pair of heels dangling from her fingers, drowning in sequins and scratchy material that Max knew was expensive but didn’t really know why.

“Try it on, Maxine darling,” Susan said, checking her watch. “We don’t have all day, you know.”

“I don’t know why I’m trying this on, I’m never going to wear it,” Max grumbled as she pulled the first dress over her head. “There’s no use spending money on something that’s only ever going to sit in a closet.”

She heard her mother’s exasperated sigh from the other side of the stall. “Just put the dress on, Max,”

It took her a while because it was a very confusing chunk of fabric to navigate, but eventually, Max emerged from the change rooms in a florally dress with garish patterns than ended just above her knees. The colours gave her vertigo and made her want to puke- she hated it.

Her mother seemed to love it, however, and clamped her hands over her mouth tears prickled at her eyes. “Oh, Max, you’re _gorgeous_ ,”

“I’d like to think I was gorgeous without the dress,” Max shot back. “I hate it. It’s gross.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Susan said as she reached out and began pulling at the dress and changing how it looked on Max’s form. “We could probably go up a few sizes- it doesn’t look as good as it does in the pictures but that’s what I expected- but it doesn’t look too bad.”

“What do you mean, a few sizes?” Max spluttered, turning around to face the mirror so she could examine herself. Hideous as the dress may be, it fit her fine. That much she could accept.

But Susan barley paid her comment any attention. “The main rule of being a woman is to flatter yourself at every opportunity, and if you don’t have it, don’t show it off, because then other people will know all your flaws and the men will never give you a second glance. You need to learn when to stand out and when to fade away.”

“If you want me to fade away, I don’t think this is the right dress to do it in,” Max muttered back, roughly yanking herself out of her mother’s grasp.

A sour look crossed Susan’s face. “Put on the other dresses, Max, and enough of that tone.”

Each dress was worse than the last- and Max had thought nothing would be uglier than that first dress but somehow her mother managed it- and eventually, they left the store with every single one of them, despite Max trying and failing to talk her mother out of it.

“You just wasted all that money for nothing,” Max fumed with her arms crossed as they waited for Billy’s car to arrive. “I’m never going to wear any of those stupid clothes.”

“Listen, Maxine, the world does not praise you because you refuse to conform to the fashion norms. It pities you,” Susan said, frustrated now as she looked down her nose at Max. “You will grow up alone and confused if you continue on this path, and I won’t be there to help you. If a man doesn’t fancy you, then your life might as well be over, because you are never going to survive without the love of one. And let me tell you- the girls who grow up wearing jeans and scrapping up knees at skate parks grow out of it, and if they don’t then they die alone and afraid. I want better for you. And I’m not going to have you ruin your chances of finding a man by wearing ugly boy’s clothes.”

“Why am I only pretty if I wear ugly dresses?” Max snapped back. “Why do I have to wear what you want me to wear?”

Susan shook her head. “No boy will ever like you the way you are, Maxine.”

“Lucas likes me.”

“Lucas?” Susan laughed, and it wasn’t the pretty sound Max was used to. It made a stone form in the pit of her stomach. “No, Max he doesn’t like you. Not in the way you think he does. But you can change that if you start dressing like a woman because let me tell you, dear, the things you wear now? It’s not a good look.”

Max was relieved as the Camaro cruised around the corner and slowly started idling through the rows of car parks. “Why do you think you know what goes on in my life?”

“Because it’s the same thing that happens in every woman’s life,” Susan said, eyes firmly fixed on the slowly approaching Camaro. “You think that you have nothing to improve, and nothing to change, but you’re wrong. You’ll never find love the way you are- nobody does. You either learn how to act like a woman and look like a woman or no man will ever look at you twice.”

Billy pulled up then, and Max had so many things she wanted to say but didn’t get the chance to because Susan slipped into the passenger seat and affixed her disarming smile to her face. When Max still didn’t get into the car, Billy rolled down his window and looked at her. She pretended not to see the concern in his eyes. “You OK, Max?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly with tears in her throat as she slowly got into the car. “I’m OK.”

Despite not looking convinced, Billy wound up his window and took off down the road. He didn’t speak until Starcourt was nothing but a speck in the distance. “So,” he tried, not too comfortable with Susan in his car, but nodding at the bags of clothes in her lap. “I take it the shopping spree went well.”

“It went very well,” Susan spoke up before Max got the chance. “We brought Max some lovely new outfits, and I must say, they look stunning on her.”

“Uh-huh,” Billy was watching Max in the rear-view mirror, and her face must have conveyed how upset she was because he didn’t let the conversation go. “And what did you get? New boots? A tiny hat?”

Susan rested her hand protectively over the bags in her lap; as if afraid that Billy would rip them away from her and throw them out the window. “Oh, nothing much. Just some things to help Max look more… feminine is all. She needs to embrace her inner woman and stop dressing up like a boy.”

The snort that wrenched itself from Billy’s throat seemed involuntary. “Max? Feminine? Those are two words that don’t go together.”

The look Susan shot him was so dark that even Max flinched back, and she wasn’t even on the receiving end of it, but to his credit, Billy kept driving and completely ignored her. “Just drive the car, Billy, and I don’t want to hear another snide comment like that again or I’ll have your father take care of it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The next day, Max watched from her bedroom window as Billy slowly pulled into the driveway, and she ran out of her room to meet him. “Woah, where do you think you’re going?” Neil stopped her as she passed him.

“Billy and I are going out for lunch,” she offered as an explanation as she rushed to the front door so she could pull on a coat.

Susan came around the corner in her pink apron with a mixing bowl held under her arm and looked at Max with barely concealed disdain. “Not like that you’re not,” she practically laughed in Max’s face. “Do you remember what we talked about? If you’re going to _be_ a woman, _dress_ like a woman and _act_ like a woman.”

Max couldn’t help but make a face. “No, no way am I going to wear one of those ugly dresses. I’m just going out with _Billy_.”

“Don’t speak to your mother like that,” Neil said lowly. “You do what she tells you to do, and if she tells you to put on a dress, then I don’t care how much you hate it, you’re going to put on a dress.”

“But-”

“No more complaints, Maxine,” Susan put down her mixing bowl and dragged Max back towards her bedroom. “Come on, I’ll pick out a pretty dress for you. You might even be able to wear my makeup- we look like a similar match.”

No longer able to do anything but follow, Max reluctantly allowed her mother to manhandle her into a frilly pink dress that ended just above the knees and had a sparkling sequined bodice, let her smear sticky-tacky-yuck foundation over her skin that was a couple of shades too dark and let her paint a bright red lipstick on her lips. When Max looked in the mirror, she felt like a mockery of herself. She’d never worn makeup so thick before, and she hadn’t worn a dress in forever for a _reason_.

But her eyes did look brighter with her slightly darker skin. And her hair was highlighted by the lipstick, and the bright red made her teeth look whiter. And the dress was flattering at all the right places, even though Max hated to admit it.

Maybe her mother was right. Maybe Max did need to grow up and start acting more like a woman. Maybe Lucas really didn’t love her. Maybe, with a dress and some makeup and a smile, she could be pretty.

Slowly, almost robotically, Max reached up and pulled her scrunchy out of her hair and ran her fingers through the remains of her ponytail so the soft strands could cascade over her shoulders and bring more attention to her freckled collarbones.

When she walked back through the foyer, both Neil and Susan were waiting for her, and they acted like she was a baby taking her first steps. “Oh, darling girl, you look so wonderful,” Susan cooed, and Max couldn’t bring herself to look at her for fear of the expression in her own eyes.

Neil was nodding in approval. “You did a good job, Susan. You really fixed her up.”

“What do you think, Maxine?” her mother asked, eager for an answer. She thought Max was going to love it, was going to fall to her feet and praise her mother and apologise for how wrong she was to doubt her.

But Max didn’t say a word, and she walked straight past them and out the front door and into the crisp, autumn air.

When Billy saw her, leaning against his car door, his mouth fell open so wide that his lit cigarette fell from between his lips and he had to quickly stomp it out before it could accidentally set the fallen, dead leaves in the gutters on fire. “What?” Max snapped.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Billy looked her up and down like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Probably because he couldn’t.

“If you’re going to make fun of me, save it,” Max crossed her arms over her chest. “I hate it just as much as you do, but if you’re going to make fun of me, I’m going to go back inside and save myself the effort.”

Billy reached out and tugged at the frilly part of her dress. “Is that _tulle_?”

Max’s bravado faltered. “Why do you know what tulle is?”

“It was my mother’s favourite fabric,” Billy said absently and Max immediately felt horrible. “Why are you wearing a dress? I’ve never seen you in one. You’ve actually expressed to me many times how much you hate them.”

Licking her lips, Max dropped her arms to her sides and immediately wanted to wrap them around her middle. “Mum said that I needed to be more like a woman, otherwise no man would ever fall in love with me, and I’ll die alone and unhappy.”

The look on Billy’s face would have almost been funny if it were under any different circumstances. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“No, she really said all that.”

“I knew you looked upset when I picked you up yesterday but I didn’t want to push in case I said something wrong in front of Susan,” Billy shook his head. “This won’t do. Get in.”

It took Max a moment to realize what Billy had said and she quickly leapt into the passenger seat before he turned the ignition and the Camaro thrummed to life. “Where are we going?”

“Back to Starcourt,” Billy said as he floored the gas. “To get you some decent fucking clothes.”

As they drove away from the house, Max twisted in her seat to look through the back windscreen and she caught Neil and Susan watching the car drive down the street from the window.

Starcourt was even fuller than the day before, and Max would have felt embarrassed about people looking at her, but Billy was there, and he glared at anyone whose gaze lingered on her for a second too long. Despite how much he changed, most of the town was still afraid of him.

He led her into narrow store blaring loud rock music from unseen speakers, filled with denim jeans and leather jackets and modified shirts and hair die, and suddenly, Max felt very out of place, but Billy walked right on in like he owned the place. “Oi, Megan,” he called, and the woman behind the counter chewing on a piece of gum looked up at him. He nodded his head to Max, shyly trying to hide behind him. “You think we could hook her up?”

Megan looked her up and down with a critical eye for a few long, tense moments before her bright face broke into a smile. “I sure can.”

When Max emerged from the single-stall changing room at the back of the store that was separated from the rest of the shop by a long, dark curtain, she was wearing a much more comfortable set of clothing than she was before. She had on a pair of dark denim jeans that were frayed at the ends, and a loose-fitting shirt that hung over her and thankfully didn’t give her any shape at all. Megan handed her a wet-wipe with a sympathetic wince and helped Max remove her mother’s ill-fitting makeup. “Don’t worry, we all know what it’s like when our parents try and make us something we’re not,” she said with a small smile when she walked away, and Max shuffled her feet uncomfortably as she waited for Billy to come to voice his approval.

Billy came around the corner and stopped like he’d hit a wall. Slung over his arm was a black and white striped shirt and a pair of shorts among other things, and the frilly pink dress was bunched up in his other hand. He rose his eyebrows at her and Max shuffled her feet. “That’s much better,” Billy eventually said with a nod.

“You really think so?” Max asked, a little confused as she pulled the shirt away from her body and looked down at it. “You don’t think it looks too… I don’t know. Boyish? Like I had on before?”

“God, Max, if you think I brought you into this store to change the way you dress, then you’ve got the wrong guy,” he scoffed. “I brought you in here because it’s mostly full of things you usually wear but just in darker colours.” When Max didn’t look convinced, Billy sighed. “Right. This is the only thing that matters. Are you comfortable in it?”

“Uh… yes?” Max blinked. This was a very different approach than what her mother had- she didn’t care if it was comfortable or if Max liked it, only if it looked good.

Nodding, Billy waved his hands about as much as he was able. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Because that means that now we can buy it,” Billy sighed as if it were obvious. “Put your shoes on, you can wear that home. I’m not making you wear this ugly dress again. You look like a clown.”

Quietly, Max returned back to the stall to slip into her shoes, and when she returned, Billy was leaning against the counter having a friendly chat with Megan with the other clothes he had in his arms before now hanging in a bag from his fingers. “Ah, lovely,” Megan smiled at her. “You have such a nice face, that dress was distracting.”

Max didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything, and she turned back to Billy. “Now what are we doing? We’re not going home so soon, are we?”

“We’re going to get lunch like a promised you,” Billy said as he pushed off the counter. “But first I’ve got a surprise for you.”

She couldn’t possibly imagine what Billy meant by ‘surprise’ or what more he could possibly give her when he’d just brought her a whole wardrobe worth of clothes, but from behind his back, he revealed two jackets and held them in each hand for Max to see.

One was a blue denim jacket with thick white fur on the inside and brass buttons down the middle, the cuffs rolled up, and the second was a leather jacket that was almost an exact replica of Billy’s, just a little smaller. In fact, so was the denim one.

“Pick one,” Billy said.

Speechless, Max held her hands out and took the leather jacket from Billy and ran her fingers over it. “What- Billy, are you really buying me a matching jacket like yours?”

Billy shrugged like it was a meaningless thing. “You’re always wearing mine to make you feel better, so I thought that you’d like your own.”

“I don’t…” Max said quietly. “I don’t know which one to choose.”

But Billy just chuckled and slung the denim jacket over his shoulder. Megan rolled her eyes at the back of his head and pulled it down so she could pack it away properly. “You’re not choosing anything. I’ve already brought them both. You were just picking which one you want to wear first.”

Gaping and wide-eyed, Max let Billy help her into the jacket and then quickly wrapped her arms around his torso before he could stop her or anyone could see. The leather squeaked with the movement but she knew from Billy’s expertise that it would wear out. “You’re the _best_ , Billy,”

“Yeah, well, you’re not too bad either, squirt,” Billy said as he pulled away and took the bags from Megan. He said a quick goodbye and together they left for the food court, careful, as always, to avoid the place that the Mind Flayer had been destroyed and almost took Billy with him. That spot always made Billy start to panic.

As Max greedily consumed her too-salty chips drowned in tomato sauce, Billy watched her and absently stirred his coffee with the little stick he had taken from the kiosk. Everyone had given their table a wide berth, so they were effectively alone in the food court. “You know, Max, don’t listen to your mother. She’s wrong. She just wants you to be like her.”

Max paused and looked at him, licking the sauce from the corner of her lips. “Are you sure? I mean, she’s kind of right. Every mother I know has a husband.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need one,” Billy insisted. “There are plenty of people who aren’t married or who don’t want to get married. Believe me, the last thing you need is a man in your life telling you what you can and can’t do.”

“But mum said…”

Billy waved his hand and coffee flicked everywhere. “Screw your mother. She’s just desperate for a baby girl that she can dress up and braid her hair and show her off to all her friends at the book club. She doesn’t care about how you feel, Max, she cares about her reputation. And when people start to talk that Susan Mayfield’s daughter dresses like a man and acts likes like a boy and only has one female friend her age, then, of course, she’s going to change everything about you to make herself look better.”

The hot chips had turned to ash in her mouth, and Max tried to wet her lips, but all she could taste was tomato sauce and salt. “I didn’t know that. I thought she was just trying to help me.”

“No, Max, she wanted to improve her public image. That’s why she took you shopping for the first time since we moved here,” Billy shook his head. “All those things she said about no man ever loving you and you dying alone if you don’t change? She was just trying to scare you. If the right man- or woman, I don’t judge- loves you, then you shouldn’t have to change. They’ll love you for who you are, not for who you pretend to be.”

Frowning, Max looked up at Billy, who was watching her intently. “How can you be sure?”

“Trust me, Max, the right person will come along and love you for you. You don’t need to change. That’s just Susan spewing bullshit into your ear,” Billy took a sip of his coffee and winced at how disgusting it was. “Don’t listen to a word she says, alright? You’re perfect the way you are and anyone who wants you to change just doesn’t know you. Even Lucas. I don't like him, but I know he makes you happy, and I see the way he looks at you. That's love, Max. And he's in love with you, not with the clothes you're wearing."

Laughing lightly, Max reached out a sauce-covered hand and gently tapped Billy on the nose, leaving a red smear from her finger, and he made a face at her. “When did you get so wise, old man?”

He used a napkin to vigorously rub off the tomato sauce before anyone else could see, “Being possessed by a demon from hell and then almost dying makes you put things in perspective I guess,” he looked at her intently as if trying to read the words written on her soul. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah, Billy,” Max said, surprised that she actually did feel much better. “I feel better. You always know the right thing to say to make me forget what I was upset about in the first place. Thank you.”

“No worries,” Billy waved her off. “Now, hurry up and finish your lunch. We’ve got a town to terrorise.”

Max laughed because she knew he was only joking, and he grinned, because he knew that she would go along with anything.

If Max had any reservations or regrets about any of the clothes she had brought behind her parents back, then the horrified look on her mother’s pale face when she finally got home at the end of the day made it all worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying something new- I'm going to gift people requests?? if that makes sense??? I don't know, I'm just going to try it out, and if that works better, then I'm going to go back through my fics and do the same thing with all my other requested works.


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